Sunday, March 1, 2015

David Ferrer continued beat Kei Nishikori 6-3, 7-5 to take the Abierto Mexicano Telcel title.

He $343,000 in prize money and 500 Ranking points. Nishikori received $154,620 in prize money along with 300 Ranking points.

Ferrer took a 3-1 lead in the first set and, after trading breaks with Nishikori, served out the first set at love. Continuing momentum, the Spaniard quickly raced to a 3-0 lead in the second set. Kei was able to get one of the breaks back and later fired a forehand to level the set at 4-all.

David earned a crucial break for 5-4 and a chance to serve for the match. Pressure mounted and the top seed broke back for 5-all, but Ferrer prevailed as he broke yet again and clinched the win in one hour and 49 minutes.

The Swiss hit ace number 9000 when he fired down a service winner at the start of the sixth game of the second set.

After saving two break points earlier in the contest, Federer broke Djokovic in the eighth game and went on to serve out the opener. Top seed Djokovic had his chances to push the match to a third set. He had Federer at 15/40 on serve in the eighth game and then again in the 10th game – eliciting two set points – but could not convert.

Federer then pounced in the 11th game, breaking Djokovic - who had led 40/0 - with a forehand winner to Djokovic, Federerlead 6-5. Federer faltered slightly serving for the match. He netted on his first match point and was forced to save a seventh break point for Djokovic before sealing victory at the second time of asking in 84 minutes.

Monday, February 23, 2015

Rafael Nadal has moved one step closer
towards defending the Rio Open title that he won last year by moving into the
semi-finals after a convincing victory over Pablo Cuevas. The Uruguayan was the
sixth seed in the tournament and he threatened to spring a surprise by winning
the opening set 4-6. This served as a major warning for the 14 time grand slam
champion, who responded with style to win the remaining two sets and progress
to the semi-finals. The match ended as a 4-6, 7-5, 6-0 victory for Nadal.
Betfair places Nadal at 2/5 to win the 2015 Rio Open.

Despite the victory, the Spaniard was not
pleased with the way the match ended in the early hours of Saturday morning
local time. The organisers seemed pretty happy with the 3:21
am closing time of the match, but Nadal said that this was not ideal for
the players. The end came 14 hours after the tournament had opened, but it was
not the worst as one non-Grand Slam match had finished at 3:24 am back in 2006
in Tokyo.